Phoenix Made of Smoke
by writerdragonfly
Summary: /Felicity feels the churning of guilt in the pit of her stomach as soon as the words are out. Not because she tells Oliver about his mother, about Merlyn, and Thea. No, that she doesn't regret because she cannot allow herself to. The knowledge she shared is important, so important. Oliver needs to know. What she regrets is the lie./ Felicity is a Hale!AU. Sterek, Olicity.
1. Prologue

**_Author's Note:_**

_This is truly a labor of love. Updates will be a bit sporadic, but I do actually have a few chapters completely written so hopefully I won't keep you all waiting for long. I owe a lot to the lovely Sam and the wonderful Westley. (deputydarrish & lovelessayase on tumblr!)_

* * *

><p>Christine Felicity Hale is born to Talia Meghan Hale on the first of August 1985. The section on her birth certificate reading "father" is left blank, though Talia knows exactly who it is. It is for her protection, her daughter's protection, and her daughter's father's protection that no record of him is attached to her.<p>

-x-

She's almost two years old when her mother marries the omega who broke off from his pack in Sacramento. He's a good man, a good wolf, and that is all that matters in the end. She doesn't remember this-it's only years later, long after his death (and her mother's) that she finds out that he came to their family after her birth. That doesn't matter to her either. In the time that he was alive, he was her father as much as any man.

Within the year that follows, she watches her mother's stomach swell in gentle curves. Watches her glow with the gentle smiles.

Laura is born that July, and Christine's life changes with that moment.

-x-

It's not like she notices at first. She's a toddler when her sister is born, and she's used to the coming and going of omegas and breakaway family packs. But her mother's attention is less on her and more on her sister.

Christine is not a wolf. She doesn't need her mother's constant attention in quite the same way as Lore.

Derek is born when Christine is four, on Christmas Day. Their aunt makes werewolf Jesus jokes that year and every year following, and it makes Uncle Peter grin his wickedly creepy grin every time.

She doesn't notice that her mother and stepfather spend less time focused on her and more on her siblings until she's entering kindergarten.

It doesn't matter though. She knows her mother loves her.

Right?

-x-

Christine goes by Felicity in school, wears her middle name like a shield. Like a superhero identity. _This is who I am outside the supernatural._

She's several grades ahead of her peers, having spent her time alone scouring over books and researching on the internet, devouring knowledge as if it would fill some hole in her she didn't know she had.

She's wickedly smart, and she knows it.

She is in the summer between seventh and eighth grades when Cora is born. She's ten years old.

-x-

Of her siblings, growing up, Christine is closest to Derek. He's the quietest of her siblings, and could give Christine a run for her money in his potential if he had the chance.

But he doesn't. He won't.

Her siblings are home schooled until middle school out of necessity, to keep the secret. They don't have teachers in Beacon Hills in the know, and it means her siblings are taught by their father while her mother does her Alpha duties, and Christine is in school.

On nights when Derek is free from werewolf duties, he and Christine go up on the roof and she teaches him things that are beyond their father's scope of knowledge. It doesn't happen often, though it does happen more and more as he learns control.

Christine graduates Beacon Hills High School when she is fifteen years old. Derek won't go to school until the following year.

She almost waits.

-x-

Stanford is like a dream. There's a small pack among the teaching staff consisting of an Alpha and two betas, and they welcome her with open arms. She's a human born to one of the country's most famous Alphas, and it makes her some sort of prize.

She wows them with her talent, with her love of learning and tinkering and doing. She completes her first degree in two years, but continues on for more.

-x-

She's nineteen when she gets the call from Laura. It's probably just minutes ahead of her mother's attempt to call her, but Laura knew just as much as anyone how close Christine and Derek had always been.

"Paige is dead. Something happened, and she got bit, and Derek had to snap her neck."

She clears a week of classes away, takes time off her work study.

She goes to her brother's side.

-x-

Leaving Derek this time is one of the hardest things she's ever had to do.

"Derek. I'm coming back, okay? I have to finish out this degree, and then I am coming home. For good. Okay? And I'll visit, as much as I can."

And she does. She's back every weekend that she can scavenge enough time without sacrificing her work study, actually taking the money her mother offers instead of trying to make it on her own.

-x-

It's exactly four weeks before graduation when she gets a call from her Laura in the middle of the night.

"Chrissy... Felicity. Hunters burned down the house. Uncle Peter's in a coma and he's not healing. It's just me and Derek left. Don't go home. It's not safe. We're taking off."

"What? No, Lore-"

"Felicity. I will contact you as soon as it's safe. I'm going to take good care of Derek, okay? I'm... I'm the Alpha now."

And Felicity can hear it in her voice, the capital A. The honesty. The terror.

"No, I'll meet you somewhere. We can hide toget-"

"_Felicity_. You're in danger simply for being related to us. They will kill you if they find out you're alive."

"That I'm-_what_?"

"I can't explain right now. Stay away from Beacon Hills. Don't try and find us. I will call you when it's safe."

And before she can protest, there is a dial tone in her ear and a ringing in her head.

-x-

She calls the sheriff from an encrypted phone line early in the morning.

"Stilinski."

"... I think... I was home for the weekend."

"What? Who is this...?"

"I... Christine Hale was home for the weekend. Okay? She didn't make it out."

"There's no evidence-"

"I was home for the weekend, Sheriff Stilinski. Please, I... My family... They're... Gone. I can't..."

There is a long silence.

"You're asking me to commit a crime, Felicity."

"I'm asking you to give me a second chance."

-x-

In the end, she knows the evidence of her return piles up as truth. She knows it's a lie. The sheriff does too. But she's good at what she does.

In the ashes of the Hale Fire, Christine Felicity Hale dies.

And miles away, Smoak rises.

-x-

Felicity Meghan Smoak is born on December 25th, 1988. She's an only child born to a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas. She isn't close to her mother, and she has no one else.

_A whole new identity. A whole new life._

-x-

During her first year at MIT, under her new name, she's stalked by a cocky young man who plays lacrosse and it's one of the most disconcerting moments of her life.

At first she thinks he's a hunter. When he turns out to be as mundane and human as anyone, she doesn't relax.

There are monsters with teeth and claws and wolfsbane bullets. And there are monsters of the mundane, human kind. She needs to remember that.

-x-

Working at Queen Consolidated is... an experience. She loves it, most of the time. She has her projects and tasks, her troubleshooting and...

At home she has her things the way she likes them.

Her old cell phone, long outdated and lacking all the gadgetry and apps of her newer phones, still sits at her side every night.

Every time she boots up her computer, every time she opens a browser, every time she picks up her phone or her tablet, she thinks about looking up the fire, about booking tickets back to Beacon Hills, about finding Laura and Derek.

It itches to do something, _anything_.

She keeps to what her Alpha asked of her.

She waits. Her little pink cell phone still active under the name Christine Felicity Hale stays charged and ready, waiting for a call that never comes.

Time passes slowly.


	2. Chapter One

-x-

**Chapter One**

-x-

Felicity feels the churning of guilt in the pit of her stomach as soon as the words are out. Not because she tells Oliver about his mother, about Merlyn, and Thea. No, that she doesn't regret because she cannot allow herself to. The knowledge she shared is important, so important. Oliver needs to know.

What she regrets is the _lie_.

Too practiced to not come out.

She doesn't want secrets from Oliver. He's too important and his trust in her is too... important.

And she hates herself a little for not telling the truth then.

_Most of my family is dead and I haven't heard from my surviving siblings in six years._

She tells the lie instead.

-x-

When she's alone in her little apartment afterward, snuggled up in her fleece pajamas with her hands gripped tightly around a mug of hot chocolate, she starts to think. She starts to get scared that Laura and Derek are gone, that they're dead and if she'd only looked sooner she'd-she'd have been able to save them.

She cracks twenty minutes later, breaks her promise to Laura from so long ago.

Laura's cell phone number connects to a teenage girl who'd had the number for ages, and that doesn't really surprise her. She didn't expect Laura to keep her cell number, not really. But she hoped it would be easy.

She had hoped...

Felicity is nothing if not determined though, setting her old phone down on the coffee table next to her hot chocolate, picking up her tablet and flipping it open.

She starts a search.

-x-

Laura Elizabeth Hale died in January. She died in the Beacon Hills Preserve, alone. There had been an arrest in connection with the case, but when it turned out to be an animal attack the suspect was released.

She finds a wanted poster for Derek Hale, a hand drawn rendering of her brother looking both ages older and achingly young, accompanying it.

It makes her heart twist painfully in her chest.

Seeing the newspaper headline, _"Derek Hale Cleared of All Charges"_, only sates her a little.

What must Derek have gone through, when Laura died? When he lost her, like he'd lost them?

And why hadn't Laura called her? Why had Laura gone back to Beacon Hills at all? Why had Derek? Why hadn't _Derek_ called her the moment Laura died?

-x-

Did Derek even know that she had been waiting for them to bring her home?

-x-

Felicity books the ticket to San Francisco two days before she gathers the courage to talk to Oliver about her leaving.

It sits in the bottom of her purse, gently slipped under everything else as not to be damaged.

She constantly thinks about it.

-x-

"I need to... I need to do something, Oliver. I fly out in the morning. I'll be gone a week."

She doesn't feel like the words belong to her. Doesn't feel like they came out of her mouth.

"What's wrong?" And there Oliver is, knowing without her saying anything, that something is wrong.

But she can't tell him, not like this. She can't admit to the trust she betrayed with her secret past and her lies. She's too wired up, too worried about the little brother, and too scared of how he will react to do this _now_.

"I can't talk about this now. I promise, as soon as I'm back I'll... I'll tell you."

She's terrified to hear the truth in her own words.

But Oliver deserves to know, doesn't he? Hasn't he been trusting her with all he is without her doing the same in return?

-x-

By the time her plane lands in San Francisco, her fingers ache from tightly gripping her arm rests. She feels a sick pull in her stomach, but she tries to ignore it.

She rents a car from one of the big name car rental places out of the airport, giving a hefty deposit over. The cost of the trip is already dipping into her system repair funds, but she doesn't let herself think about that.

Instead, she drives white knuckled the entire way to her hometown.

-x-

Beacon Hills isn't exactly the same as in her memory, but it's close enough. The city has grown wider, but the core parts are still the same.

She drives to the bed and breakfast on Third, staring up at the beautiful old house for several minutes before driving away. It's been relabeled an antique store, the old Hale Inn sign replaced with fanciful metal one with a name she can't bring herself to take in.

She shouldn't be surprised that one of her family's properties now belongs to someone else.

It still hurts.

-x-

She checks into the cheap little motel on State Street and collapses into a musty smelling pillow and cries for what feels like hours. She hasn't gathered the courage to go see the house yet, to see the burnt husk of the place she had lived her entire life.

Felicity gets to her old house at dusk that night. There are construction lights set up around the perimeter of the land the house was on, surrounded in chain link fence.

It's mostly just heaps of blackened wood and charred cement left, the shell of it having been torn down by hands and machinery.

She wonders of it would have been better or worse to have seen it standing, _still_.

Her fingers are smeared with black ash from the boards of the house, and she's pretty sure there is a smear across her cheeks from wiping away tears.

Being at the house had been so hard, and seeing it as a torn down wreckage hadn't helped.

But it was proof that they were gone and she wished she hadn't waited so long to go after it.

-x-

There's a plot in the cemetery for her family. None of them are actually buried there. Except, apparently, for Laura.

Her mother had buried her stepfather in the plot on their land in the woods, alongside countless other Hales over the years.

But whoever took care of the funeral, whoever paid for the headstones? They put them all together in the cemetery closest to the preserve.

There are nine headstones, and Laura's is still new.

Hers is among them, right between Talia and Cora.

Someone has carved triskelions into each stone after the fact, and she knows it because it's not a precise cut. It doesn't match.

She thinks it was Derek.

Him and Peter are the only two without headstones here.

She hopes that's a sign that she's not as alone as she has felt for so long.

Not that having Uncle Peter back would be a good thing. She had never much cared for him, and he for her. She never knew what he had against her, other than the lack of wolfishness since her birth, and she found him manipulative and a bit creepy.

Not that it mattered. She wouldn't search for him, anyway.

She places a kiss to her fingertips and gently touched Laura's headstone.

"I'm sorry, Lore. I should have been your big sister first... I should have... I shouldn't have listened to you."

Guilt climbs up her throat like a vine, choking down words before they can spill out.

-x-

There is an industrial property that her family still owns according to the city, and the utility bills on it are all paid up, if the usage is incredibly low.

She remembers her aunt working on plans to retrofit it into classy apartments, starting the changes and filing the permits. But it never been finished, because the fire had taken her aunt's life just as quickly as her mother's.

Staring up at the imposing building now, she wonders if she can rustle up the courage to actually go inside.

-x-

The lower levels are half gutted of what accouterments the apartments had gathered, layers of spray paint on walls and floors making the already creepy building nothing short of haunting.

She recognizes the mess of drug paraphernalia scattered about and it makes her nervous.

Why would they pay for power and water and gas to part of the building but leave _this_ here?

She doesn't find anyone on the lower floors, and the upper floors are currently inaccessible from the lower floors from the inside, so she leaves the them and heads to the service entrance on the far side.

The call button for the elevator works, and she rides up the rusty gated box to the top floor, choosing it based on the circle worn into the button from considerable use.

It creaks to a halt half an inch lower than it should, but that doesn't bother her much. She climbs out and heads to the huge door a few feet away.

Felicity has one hand on her cell phone as she knocks with the other, and she tenses when she hears noise from within.

"Stiles, why did I give you a key if you're just going to-" and that's her brother's voice from the other side of the door. That's his face-_so much older_-eyes wide with shock that peers at her from the now open door.

That's Derek, in front of her. Wholly alive.

_"Issy?"_

And with his whisper of her nickname, Felicity falls apart.

-x-

_**Author's Note:**_

_Look, chapter one! Please don't expect chapter two to come nearly as fast. I want to write chapter four before I post it. I hope you enjoyed it!_


	3. Chapter Two

_**Author's Note: **_

_I am absolutely BLOWN AWAY at the reception this has been getting. Over 121 subscribers between here and AO3! I hope you continue to enjoy it. The next few chapters were incredibly difficult to write, so I hope you like them. The next chapter will be posted as soon as I finish writing chapter five, so please be patient with me. This is definitely going to be continued. :)_

_And our plot should be picking up soon. :3_

**-x-**

**Chapter Two**

**-x-**

Felicity has her arms around Derek before she even knows what she's doing. Her grip is tight, her face pressed into his chest. It takes only a few seconds for his arms to wrap tightly around her, his chin resting on her head.

"Where have you been?" Derek asks after a moment, releasing her in order to lead her inside.

"I was waiting... Laura told me to wait, that she would call me when it was safe. And I kept waiting..." She doesn't like how broken she sounds, how helpless. This is her baby brother, her last remaining sibling. And she's acting like he's the adult here, like he's her elder.

And she hates that. She's supposed to be his big sister; he's supposed to come to her for guidance and comfort.

But she's been alone for so long, so far removed from what was left of the tattered remains of her family... She doesn't know how she fits anymore.

**-x-**

"I'm so glad you're back, Issy," Derek murmurs into her shoulder when she pulls him close again.

"I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner. You shouldn't have been alone, you never should have been alone."

**-x-**

"Did you come back, after the fire?" Derek asks from where he stands in front of his stove, stirring the stir fry in his pan with a wooden spoon.

"No... I... I couldn't," she answered, using a candy cane to stir her cup of hot chocolate. Derek looked back at her where she sat in his only kitchen chair, her knees propped up to rest under her chin.

"Why now?"

And that's the question isn't it?

"I... I lied to my best friend about who I was. He doesn't trust... almost anyone. And my default was to lie to him, Derek. I had... I had to find out if there was anyone left..."

**-x-**

Derek's cooking is good. It surprises her more than it should. But, there are a lot of things about her brother that are completely different than the slightly scrawny baby faced boy she remembers.

They're eating next to each other on his couch, talking about the last book they'd read in common when his phone rings.

He answers it with a faint smile, his little bunny teeth peeking out and _oh my god_, he still has them!

He places it on speaker phone after saying hello and it takes Felicity a best longer than it should to place the other voice.

_"What was so important that you had to have my Alpha interrupt my date, Derek?"_

"Cora? You're alive?" Felicity blurts out, her eyes pricking with tears.

_"Chrissy?_" And Cora sounds so little, so broken.

"Yes. It's me, Coraline."

**-x-**

Felicity leaves after the teary phone call with her baby sister, after she's helped Derek wash their plates and packaged up the leftovers.

She tells him she'll be back and she means it.

She heads to her hotel and packs her bags up again. Within half an hour, she's back at the loft with everything she'd brought with her.

Derek is wearing sleep clothes when she gets back, and the ratty tank and sweatpants show off the difference in his muscle size over the years a lot more than the soft sweater and blue jeans had.

He looks comfortable though, just as much as he had before.

She thinks it looks good on him, and it's not just the clothes.

**-x-**

"You didn't know if I was alive, did you?" She asks him on the balcony, looking out at the stars.

"Laura told me you were safe, once. That you'd come to us. I didn't... I didn't know you were waiting to be called home. I just kept waiting for you."

And that hurts.

Felicity thinks she understands why Laura did it. Keep the full humans safe first-that's always been an unspoken motto in the Hale family pack. But it hurts, badly.

Felicity can handle Laura leaving her in the dark, not calling her home, not telling her they were safe. She can handle that.

But Laura not telling Derek anything is near impossible to deal with.

"Enough with the sappy stuff. I need to sleep. Direct me to a bed, oh brother, my brother."

There's only one bed in his loft-his words for the strange apartment, not hers-and a pile of blankets in one of the spare rooms. She doesn't know why the apartment is sparse, and she's so thrown by everything of the past few hours that she doesn't ask.

"You can take the bed," Derek says, nodding towards it. She snorts.

"I'm not taking your bed, Derek. I can go back to the motel to sleep if-"

"You're not going back to a motel, Issy. Just take the bed."

Felicity sighs, thinking about arguing again. But she looks at her brother and remembers how much time together they've _lost_ because she thought to listen to her Alpha instead of what her heart insisted was right.

"It's a big bed. We can share. If... If you're okay with that?"

Felicity isn't used to sharing a bed. Not with anyone. She hasn't slept with anyone in months, and even then she hadn't had the opportunity to actually sleep beside anyone.

She knows it's weird. But she remembers being sixteen and curling up in bed with Laura and Derek and Cora the night before she left for college and just being there together. Pack, family, forever.

Derek nods.

"Okay."

**-x-**

They don't snuggle, or cuddle. They don't even face each other, let alone touch. There's a comfort though, in knowing the other is _right there_.

Despite that, she lies awake for a while, her brain whirring through the events of the day, of the night.

"I'll get you a mattress tomorrow."

Felicity sits up at that, looks at her younger brother.

She doesn't speak, can't make herself. Instead she reaches over and squeezes his shoulder before curling back into her side of the bed.

And it is enough.

**-x-**

It's nearly four in the morning when Derek suddenly shifts, making enough noise and movement to startle her awake. She throws on a sweater before she follows him out of the bedroom, blinking blearily awake.

"I'm sorry, I know it's like the middle of the night, but I had to see-"

There's a teenage boy standing in the middle of her brother's living room. He's wearing an oversized blue hoodie and plaid patterned sleep pants. One of his shoes is untied.

And he looks like he's hardly slept in days.

She thinks he looks familiar, but she cannot place him in her mental catalog.

"It's fine. Another nightmare?" Her brother asks him and yeah, this is weird.

"Sorry, dude. Didn't expect you to have a girl over-" the kid says. She interrupts him unintentionally with a snort.

"Definitely _not_ like that, kid," she follows up, looking between him and her brother.

Derek sighs.

"Go back to bed, Issy." Derek says, and it kind of makes her want to growl at him.

"How about, instead of me going back to sleep, you tell me why a teenage boy is coming to your apartment in the middle of the night?" She blurts out instead, crossing her arms like she meant to say it. The boy smirks at her brother when she does it.

"Didn't mean to get your new girlfriend upset with you, Derek. I can go..."

"It is definitely not like that. No. Ewww. Not that he isn't attractive, objectively speaking but no, definitely not into incest." Felicity rambles, wincing when she realises what she's said. The boy grins at her when he realises who she is.

"Lissy Hale? Derek, it's like all your dead family is coming out of the woodwork-Peter, Cora, Lissy. Who's next, your mother?"

"No, Stiles. My mother is dead. Issy, can we talk about this later?"

The atmosphere gets heavy again, like a woolen blanket has been placed on their shoulders. It's uncomfortable and makes her uneasy.

"Stiles Stilinski? The sheriff's kid?" Felicity asks, focusing on that instead of her brother's request.

"Do you know any other Stiles?" The kid asks with a smirk. And yeah, point.

"How do you know my brother?" She honestly wants to know. There aren't any circumstances she can put to mind that _don't_ make her brother look bad right now.

"Oh, Derek and I go way back. Feels like decades." Stiles answers, and_ her brother rolls his eyes._

"It hasn't even been a year, Stiles. Can we talk about this in the morning, Christine?" Derek asks her and, yeah. That kind of hurts.

"That's not my name, Derek. It hasn't been my name in almost seven years." She swallows hard after she says it. This is definitely a conversation that Stiles Stilinski does _not_ need to be present for, but she can't help it.

Derek _never_ called her Christine. And no one had called her that since she was twenty years old and totally and completely on her own for the first time.

"Derek, I'll be okay. You should talk to her." Stiles tries to leave, but Felicity interrupts.

"No, Stiles. I don't understand why you're here, but you obviously need him. I'll go get coffee and breakfast while you guys talk. I doubt any of us are going back to sleep."

She'd been told before, that she was too self-sacrificing. It had been in reference to doing whatever Oliver needed at the expense of her own damn heart, then. But she knew it was probably just as true now.

She didn't need to be a wolf to sense that the two of them were something more than friends, even if she wasn't sure how.


End file.
